2 comments:

I love the counterpoint between the insistent claims of afterlife illusions in this poem and "The Spell" -- in the latter, the almost undetectable gentle attempts by the shades to pierce the veil we desperately hope is there, in "Mementos" the residues of the desire to not cross over at all, to leave an essence here, tidal forces pulling us over there leaving cracked shells behind. I like the personalization of "cargo cult" here too -- you've used that term before in more like culture comment, but there's more poignancy in the usage here. Maybe we're willing to allow these cracked bits to represent us, no matter how severe the seeming distortion, because we have hopes of really great archaeologists coming along in a billion years or so who'll know how to put the whole thing together again?

Yes, it's the poignancy and pathos of the claim staked in the poor pathetic material trifles, as though some part of the human remained alive in what has been touched, saved, stored, kept--or maybe just lost and forgotten in the back of a drawer or a closet, to be cleaned out by the survivors, for whom these sad objects take on a significance that was perhaps never invested them in the first place. The transference of feeling into things, inevitable, ineffable, strange.